There was once a period last season when some Tottenham supporters and pundits considered Spurs more efficient without Harry Kane in the squad.
The Spurs talisman and the England captain missed good chunks of the 2018/19 campaign due to ligament injuries, with stats from Transfermarkt showing that the 26-year-old striker’s absence wasn’t felt much as Tottenham managed four league wins a row from late January to early February in a run that seemingly helped the north London side to a top-four finish.
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But it was in the Champions League last season where Kane’s absence was the most irrelevant, as the attacker missed the second-leg against Manchester City as well as both ties against Ajax in Tottenham’s fairytale run to their first European final this century.
Yet with Jose Mourinho now in charge at Tottenham, the story is a completely different one with the Portuguese manager reliant on a player of Kane’s qualities upfront to be the figurehead in the team, with the former Manchester United boss admitting via The Sun that he fears Spurs will struggle without the England captain.
With Jurgen Klopp branding Kane as a ‘fantastic player’ via The Telegraph, Tottenham are bound to struggle in the upcoming weeks given Mourinho’s need for a target man in his Spurs system, and this weekend’s 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough proved this theory.
As analysis from Sky Sports shows, Mourinho’s use of Kane compared to Mauricio Pochettino differs, with the Portuguese manager being more direct to his Argentine counterpart with his utilisation of the 26-year-old striker with the Tottenham star averaging more aerial duels under the ex-Real Madrid boss.
Kane’s absence has sometimes been seen as a blessing in disguise under Pochettino, but in the Mourinho era of Tottenham, the English striker will be a massive loss for the Spurs manager, who has gone about making the attacker the go-to player for the north London side.